Eight Questions for Masayuki Suo, The Director of "Shall We Dance?"

“Shall We Dance?“, written and directed by Masayuki Suo, is the story of aJapanese every(business)man (Koji Yakusho of “Tampopo” and recent PalmeD’Or, “Unagi“) looking for a way out of his humdrum life. When he sees abeautiful woman at the window of a dancing school, he is drawn into theenchanting world of ballroom dance. Distributed by Miramax, and openingtoday, it is sure to be given an immense marketing thrust, “Shall We Dance?”hopes to be the next “Il Postino“.

I met with Suo, a humble man who rarely looked in my direction, alongwith his translator and an assistant who stood beside a video camerapointed at the director. As I sat in front of a smaller camera fixed onmy own face, they told me he is documenting his press-tour of America.

indieWIRE: Why does your film begin with a water drop?

Masayuki Suo: First of all, the keyword of the movie is Blackpool [wherethe ballroom dancing championships are held]. And the water was a blackpool. The first drop into the black pool was a tear drop of the leadingactress. And the one footstep into the water puddle, that’s the foot ofMr. Sugiyama, the hero. Sugiyama steps into the world where the heroinesheds tears.

(The sound of autofocusing fills a momentary silence)

iW: What is your background, your previous films?

Suo: My first movie was called “Daughter-in-Law“. In Japan, it’scategorized as a “pink” movie or X-rated movie. However, this movie wasabout the director, Yasujiro Ozu, whom I respect very much. However, theX-rated movies in Japan are perceived as regular movies, unlike theporno movies in the United States. After making a TV drama, I made adocumentary about “A Taxing Woman” by Juzo Itami. After that, I was calledto make a major picture. And my first movie was called “Manic Zen” inEnglish. Although it wasn’t released in the United States, only in moviefestivals. It is a story about a rock singer who takes over his father’sprofession as a Buddhist monk. And the movie after that is about acollege student doing Sumo wrestling.

iW: You mentioned Ozu as an influence? Could you talk about his influence on “Shall We Dance?”

Suo: I don’t know.

(Everyone laughs)

Suo: I like Mr. Ozu so much, my first movie I consider as a continuationof his work. In regards to “Shall we Dance?”, I didn’t think very muchabout Ozu, therefore I don’t know how I was influenced and I haven’teven analyzed it. I think the stillness is more about the way Japanesehouses are made rather than the way Ozu took a picture.

iW: In contrast to the stillness, there is, of course, the moving camera in the dances. How did you approach filming the dance sequences?

Suo: First, I made research into ballroom dancing as an outsider. Afterthat, I took lessons myself. The impression I had in the beginning wasquite different from when I had when I actually danced. The audience,sitting in the theater, are not dancing with the characters, so mychallenge was how to make them feel as if they were. I thought of manyways to shoot the dancing. We made a large disk, 2 meters in diameter,and put wheels with swivels on the bottom and the assistants moved itaround. That made all the dance scenes very lively.

iW: About the characters in the script — you feel for everyone one of them. Could you talk about the writing and having every character asimportant as the other?

Suo: The most important thing for me in movie making is to love thecharacters of the movie, so even though you only have a few seconds witha character, that person has to have his own life. Therefore, I want torespect it, I want to make movies where each character has his ownindividuality.

iW: At what point did Miramax become involved?

Suo: We exhibited the movie at the American Film Market and that’s whenMiramax approached us.

iW: Were there any changes made?

Suo: I was told that subtitled foreign films that take more than twohours is a message to the audience that they don’t have to come. So inorder to fit into this requirement, we cut it 18 minutes. Also, wechanged the narration in the beginning of the movie. I suggested it. Inorder for audiences to better understand the movie, I thought it wouldbe effective to talk about the cultural background. Also, I preferrepeating the same elements of humor many times in a movie even thoughthe audience may be expecting this, but those scenes were cut becausethey were repetitious. However, I think that’s where you see theinfluence of Ozu most. And also across the board, we cut a little bithere and a little bit there.

iW: Do you think we’re going to be seeing more recent Japanese films in America?

Suo: In addition to such directors as Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu, therewere many excellent directors in the past, but for twenty years, itseems that there is a void and there hasn’t been many good movies. Therewill be a new discovery of the old Japanese movies and people willrealize we’ve had many more directors than these three. Also, today,there are many directors who are promising and very good, younger thanme. In the Japanese movie industry, there are no longer the majorstudios producing movies, that was destroyed 20 years ago. Therefore, weare in an era where you see new types of directors. And at the sametime, the American distributors are beginning to show interest in themovies outside of the country. The quality of the Japanese movies areimproving and there are many foreign distributors who are payingattention to Japanese movies, so in that sense I think they will beshown all over the world.

iW: Are there are a lot of people making movies in Japan? Is their moneyfor filmmakers?

Suo: Actually, we don’t have money. Money is very tight. Yes, there aremany people with an ambition to make movies. Everybody is aware thatthey can’t match the dynamics and size of American pictures. Becausemoney is tight, we try to make our movies different from the majorstudios and because ours are different, that’s why American distributorsare looking at us now.